Posted on 03/28/2004 6:10:42 AM PST by truthandlife
Why did the Bush administration immediately suspect that Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks when there was no evidence of any connection, as Richard Clarke and other Bush critics maintain?
Maybe it was because there was indeed evidence, very dramatic evidence, in fact - in the form of warnings in the state-run Iraqi press that such an attack was coming, along with praise for Osama bin Laden and his kamikaze hijackers in the days after the World Trade Center was destroyed.
Less than two months before 9/11, the state-controlled Iraqi newspaper "Al-Nasiriya" carried a column headlined, "America, An Obsession Called Osama Bin Ladin." [July 21, 2001] In the piece, Baath Party writer Naeem Abd Muhalhal predicted that bin Laden would attack the U.S. "with the seriousness of the Bedouin of the desert about the way he will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House."
The same state-approved column also insisted that bin Laden "will strike America on the arm that is already hurting," and that the U.S. "will curse the memory of Frank Sinatra every time he hears his songs" - an apparent reference to the Sinatra classic, "New York, New York." [Two 9/11 families were awarded over $100 million last May by U.S. District Court Judge Harold Baer based on this and other evidence that Iraq was involved in 9/11]
Saddam's threats of a 9/11-style attack before 9/11 weren't limited to that single report. In 1992, his son Uday used an editorial in Babil, the newspaper he ran, to warn of Iraqi kamikaze attacks inside America, saying, "Does the United States realize the meaning of every Iraqi becoming a missile that can cross countries and cities?"
Then in the late 1990s, according to UPI, "a cable to Saddam from the chief of Iraqi intelligence was transmitted by Baghdad Radio. The message read, 'We will chase [Americans] to every corner at all times. No high tower of steel will protect them against the fire of truth.'"
Coincidence? Perhaps.
But after the 9/11 attacks, Saddam became the only world leader to offer praise for bin Laden, even as other terrorist leaders, like Yassir Arafat, went out of their way to make a show of sympathy to the U.S. by donating blood to 9/11 victims on camera.
The day after the attacks, in quotes picked up by Agence France Press, Saddam proclaimed that "America is reaping the thorns planted by its rulers in the world."
"There is hardly a place (in the world) that does not have a memorial symbolizing the criminal actions committed by America against its natives," AFP quoted the Iraqi dictator complaining, based on reports in the Iraqi News agency.
After excoriating the U.S. for ending World War II by using nuclear weapons, and for its involvement in Vietnam, Saddam gloated, "[He] who does not want to reap evil must not sow it, and [he] who considers the lives of his people precious must remember that the lives of the people in the world are precious also."
"The American peoples should remember that no one ever crossed the Atlantic carrying weapons to be used against them. They are the ones who crossed the Atlantic carrying death, destruction and ugly exploitation to the whole world."
A day later Saddam told visiting Tunisian Foreign Minister Habib ben Yahya, "America brought the hatred of the world upon itself."
For his part Uday flat-out praised the 9/11 attacks, saying, "These were courageous operations carried out by young Arabs and Muslims," according to quotes picked up by the Saudi daily Asharq al-Awsat.
As Richard Clarke and his fans in the Democrat-media complex report in ominous tones that President Bush ordered him to launch an unwarranted investigation into the 9/11-Iraq connection, it's worth remembering how much Iraq had done justify that order.
No, but I couldn't resist repeating your next line!
miserable failure miserable failure miserable failure miserable failure war criminal
It relies in part on a newspaper article published July 21, 2001, in Al Nasiriyah, 185 miles southwest of Baghdad. The law firm provided The Associated Press with a copy of the article written in Arabic and an English translation.
According to the lawsuit, a columnist writing under the byline Naeem Abd Muhalhal described bin Laden thinking "seriously, with the seriousness of the Bedouin of the desert, about the way he will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House."
Naeem Abd Muhalhal wrote in Al Nasiriyah newspaper on 21 July 2001 - just six weeks before the attacks - that Bin Laden would "strike America on the arm that is already hurting", apparently referring to the 1993 bombing of the WTC.
He also said that Bin Laden would "curse Frank Sinatra every time he hears his songs", apparently a reference to the song New York, New York.
Kabooooom!
Clarke could have prevented 911 if he had been paying attention to Iraq instead of trying to track Bin Laden!
US documents relates Masood's assassination to 9/11 attacks
WASHINGTON, September 14 (Online): On the second anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the National Security Archive at George Washington University has disseminated a new collection of recently declassified US documents covering the controversial rise to power of Taliban in Afghanistan.
The documents unveiled a November 2001 DIA cable that discusses the relationship between the assassination of Northern Alliance Commander Ahmad Shah Masoud and the terrorist attacks of September 11. The cable indicates that Masoud had gained limited knowledge "regarding the intentions of the Saudi millionaire Osama (bin Ladin), and his terrorist organization, al-Qaida, to perform a terrorist act against the US on a scale larger than the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania." Could Masood's knowledge of an attack and subsequent warning to the US government have led to his assassination.?
The cables and correspondence clearly indicates that the Clinton administration was in touch with the Taliban government and had no problem with their policies so far as there was a possibility that the communication channels can lead to favorable business/trade opportunities for the United States.
The National Security Archive is an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University in Washington, DC. The Archive collects and publishes declassified documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). This reference has a particular relevance today, as the Taliban fighters are reportedly regrouping in Afghanistan.
This text called "The Taliban File" is a collection of 32 documents obtained through the US FOIA by Archive research associate Sajit Gandhi details the rise of the Taliban from its meager start in Kandahar to a full fledged military force and ultimate control of the country. The documents discuss Pakistan's support for the Taliban, US dealings with the Taliban, post 9/11 thinking on military strategy in the War on Terror, and the relationship between the assassination of the Northern Alliance Commander Ahmad Shah Masoud and the terrorist attacks of September 11.
The declassified documents revealed a November 1994 cable from the US Embassy in Islamabad, which mentions one of the first kidnappings conducted by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, kidnapped one American-Bella Josef Nuss - and three British citizens. The document indicates that Sheikh "holds a British Passport, attended the London School of Economics, and spent time in Bosnia where the abuse of Muslim women apparently radicalized his views."
Moreover, a February 1995 cable from the US Embassy in Islamabad, which offers a detailed biographic sketch of the Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Amir-ul-Momineen from his origins in the Mujahideen to his rise as the leader of the Taliban.
A December 1997 Department of State cable summarizing a meeting between Taliban officials in the US as part of a Unocal delegation and Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Karl Inderfurth. When the Taliban are questioned by Inderfurth over their allowing Osama Bin Laden refuge, a Taliban representative responds by saying that if they expelled Bin Laden he would go to Iran and cause more trouble.
Another representative notes that the Taliban did not invite Bin Laden into Afghanistan, but that he was already inside Afghanistan, "as a guest of the previous regime when they took over." The Taliban representative claims that they had stopped allowing Bin Laden to give public interviews, and "had frustrated Iranian and Iraqi attempts to get in contact with him."
A Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) cable from October 2001 discusses the role of Pakistan in the rise of the Taliban and questions about Pakistan's and the ISI's connection with Bin Laden. "Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network was able to expand under the safe sanctuary extended by Taliban following Pakistan Directives."
http://www.help-for-you.com/news/Nov2001/Nov26/PRT26-37Article.html
Suspects in Masood Assassination Arrested
VOA News 26 Nov 2001 16:37 UTC
A Tunisian national has been detained in France and 11 other people in Belgium as part of a probe into the slaying of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Masood. Commander Masood was assassinated in early September in his northern Panjsher valley stronghold by two Moroccans traveling on stolen Belgian passports and posing as journalists. The Moroccans exploded a booby-trapped camera while interviewing the commander in his office in northern Afghanistan.
A source close to the investigation says 11 other people believed to be members of the terrorist network that carried out the assassination were arrested early Monday in Belgium. Some analysts suspect that the September 9 assassination of Commander Masood was a go-ahead signal by terrorist network al-Qaida for the September 11 terror attacks in the United States.
Some information for this report provided by AFP and DPA.
Report: British Police Arrest Suspect in Masood Assassination
Michael Drudge London
24 Oct 2001 16:33 UTC
British news reports say police in London have arrested an Egyptian man for questioning about the assassination of an Afghan opposition leader.
London police say its anti-terrorist branch arrested a 38-year-old man in west London Tuesday, and he is being questioned in a central London police station. They have not released his name.
However, British newspapers say the man in question is Yasser al-Siri, an Egyptian exile who faces a death sentence in his homeland for a murder conviction.
According to several British newspapers, al-Siri is being interrogated about the September 8 assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud, a commander of the opposition Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.
The accounts say he provided references to two men who traveled from London to Pakistan, and then on to Afghanistan to carry out the Massoud assassination.
The two men convinced Mr. Massoud that they were journalists for an Arab television company. It is believed they hid a bomb in the television camera they used. The explosion fatally wounded Commander Massoud and both of the assassins died.
American investigators suspect the Massoud assassination is linked to Osama bin Laden, who wanted to destabilize anti-Taleban forces in Afghanistan ahead of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
Al-Siri has denied any links to terrorism and he says his London-based Islamic Observation Center is a news and information source. Al-Siri was sentenced to death in Egypt for the 1993 assassination attempt against former prime minister Atef Sedki. A 12-year-old girl was killed in the attack.
He also has reported links to al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, a militant Islamic group that claimed responsibility for a 1997 attack at Luxor, Egypt, in which 58 tourists and four Egyptians were killed.
In a separate Egyptian trial two years ago, al-Siri was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for plotting to carry out attacks against officials and police.
Al-Siri fled to London in 1994. He allegedly entered Britain on a false passport, but he was granted asylum and he has so far fended off Egypt's attempts to have him extradited.
Everyone seems to have known something was coming. on 9/15 Clarke wrote an email to Condi outlining the warnings that had been given to law enforcement.
Not specific or useful warnings, mind you, but he did have a list of al Qaida members, in case any of them broke any American laws.
Unfortunately, being read into the record and read to the American people via mainstream media (or on SNL or the Tonight Show) is two different things. With this 9-11 commission going on, there has got to be a way for the White House to get this out there. Any suggestions.Email the link to this thread to everyone you know. Hopefully, some of us here know some higher-ups in the RNC.
I just caught that on the Screaming Faces post, but haven't yet looked into it. On the face of it, it sounds Clintonian- a deliberate lie spun out to damage his enemy's credibility.
I looked over at "Sunday Morning Talk Show Thread 28 Mar 2004" and see you are on it, and don't seem to have gotten an answer yet.
I'll see what I can find.
That much is obvious from the results.
The argument being pushed by the dems, however, is that Iraq had nothing to do with it. We Know that Iraq had inside information that they failed to share with us. They were privy to the conspiracy. Reason enough to declare war.
And it makes a fool out of Clarke for arguing that Iraq was not involved.
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